>> well, i certainly think that the fiscal cliff, that language is a manufactured media narrative. that americans believe on january 1 we are going to be standing in line for bread. that's not going to happen this is all because congress kicked the can down the road. after the debt ceiling, which was a real crisis. and so by not completing resolving that issue in a substantive manner. we now are here at this fiscal slope as i like to call it, not cliff. >> laura: presumably, no matter what you say about what happened a year and a half ago, the president was part of that equation, right? he is the president of the united states. >> he is. but there are three branches of government. >> laura: accountability for that as well: that's for sure and the democrats didn't get around to actually passing a budget so we need to move on to that that guy, we are going to have the republicans have only so much leverage. in effect they don't have a lot of power here, do they? not really i think we learned that speaker boehner own party we can go back as you said to the debt ceiling debate. the onl